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While the 21-year-old impressed throughout the tournament, it was in the grand final against G2 Esports where he shone brightest of all. The four-map thriller ended in a 3-1 win for the North American team after an incredible 47-round shootout on Inferno, with EliGE (1.23) and his teammate Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken (1.21) leading the match ratings.
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Besides finishing as the best player in finals, Jablonowski also received the ESL Pro League Season 9 MVP award with an average rating of 1.29. His best match rating (1.70) came against MIBR on Dust II, while he put up scores of 1.42, 1.48 and 1.50 against Astralis in the quarters and held respectable ratings of 1.33, 1.27, 1.11 and 1.24 against G2 in the title series.
Besides leading the tournament’s rating charts, EliGE also finished joint-top for total kills (395) and had the most assists (83) and the most opening frags (70). Additionally, he was in the top five for ADR (88.8), KPR (0.82), percentage of rounds with at least one kill (53.5%) and opening kills per round (0.15).
This is the young American’s second MVP award in quick succession after he claimed top honours at DreamHack Masters Dallas, where Team Liquid also took out the title.
Team Liquid and Astralis were considered the two favourites to go all the way and win the title in Montpellier, France. Liquid have enjoyed a phenomenal season, winning DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019, IEM Sydney 2019 and iBUYPOWER Masters 2019, while finishing second at cs_summit 4, BLAST Pro Series Miami 2019 and BLAST Pro Series S?o Paulo 2019. Astralis were the most dominant team of 2018 and it was expected the Danes would continue that legacy this season.
While expectations were high for the two favourites, Liquid surprisingly lost in the first round against North (16-13), which left Astralis as the outright favourites for the title. Nonetheless, Liquid managed to come out of the lower bracket with relative ease to rejoin the top six teams, once again establishing themselves as a real contender to win it all.
The ESL Pro League Season 9 playoffs served us with a ‘finals before finals’ scenario as Astralis and Team Liquid met in the last eight. A match that started off in Astralis’ favour ended with a rather dominant win for Liquid, who took the last two maps to advance to the semi-finals and ensure Astralis would not catch them in the world rankings.
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Next up for Liquid was a clash with mousesports, who proved no match for the North American giants. After a convincing 16-8 win on Overpass, the title favourites claimed a 19-17 overtime result on Nuke to book a spot in the ESL Pro League Season 9 grand final.
Awaiting them in the Bo5 decider were G2 Esports, who were under a lot of pressure to satisfy the home crowd and keep the trophy in France. Both of the opening two maps ended in Team Liquid’s favour – one a hard-fought 19-15 result on Dust II, the other a much easier 16-3 win on Overpass. Liquid only needed one more map to lift the trophy, but G2 hit back to win 16-12 on Nuke and take the series to a fourth map.
The resulting clash on Inferno proved to be one of the best CS:GO esports matches of the whole season. The two sides went back and forth, with neither able to establish a solid lead before the other caught up. After a gruelling yet brilliant 47 rounds, Team Liquid finally emerged with a 25-22 result to seal the title with a 3-1 series victory.
The win sees Liquid move to 1,000 points in the CS:GO world rankings, giving them a lead of 466 points over second-placed Astralis.
The upper-bracket Bo3 clash kicked off on Train, where it was NRG who managed to win the opening three rounds and establish a strong lead. However, Astralis did not give up and put together a five-round run to take a 5-3 advantage. NRG hit back to reduce the deficit to one round, but their Danish opponents kicked away again and took a 10-6 lead into half-time.
The second half started just like the first with NRG winning three rounds and then losing the fourth, which resulted in the scoreboard showing an 8-11 lead for Astralis. The finish line was in sight for the former world no.1 CS:GO esports team when they edged out to 13-9, but NRG found another gear and stormed home with seven consecutive wins to steal a 16-13 result.
Astralis responded immediately on Nuke, jumping out to an 8-2 lead with the help of Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz. NRG worked their way back into the contest, however, and reduced the gap to four rounds by the end of the first half.
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Following an impressive show on T side, Astralis proved they can be just as deadly on the defensive end. While it was NRG who won the opening two rounds, Astralis quickly found their rhythm and concluded the map with a string of six consecutive wins.
The Danes carried all the momentum into Dust II, but it was NRG who entered the third and final map with all guns blazing. They won the opening six rounds and completely shut down their opponents’ attempts to plant the bomb. Astralis woke up at last and salvaged what was left, winning six of the next nine rounds to cut NRG’s lead to 9-6 at the break.
Astralis hoped for a better start on CT side, but NRG once again got the jump and won the opening three rounds to extend the margin to six (12-6). Astralis managed to pull the scoreline back to 13-11, but NRG won the Eco to make it 14-12 and closed out the next two rounds with relative ease to seal a 2-1 series win.
That result puts Astralis in a blockbuster quarter-final clash with Team Liquid, while NRG will face the winner of FaZe Clan and G2 Esports.
The first day saw FaZe Clan, North, mousesports and Hellraisers win through to the second round, from where the losers would join MIBR and Team Liquid in the lower bracket and the winners would advance to the playoffs.
Hellraisers started as massive underdogs in their Bo3 clash with mousesports. The oddsmakers had nothing to worry about as the favourites saluted with convincing wins on Mirage (16-5) and Nuke (16-8).
FaZe Clan vs North was a different story altogether.
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The Danes got off to a swimming start on Inferno, ending the first half with a huge lead of 11-4. They were even better after the break, scoring eight rounds to nil to secure a resounding 16-4 victory.
FaZe Clan needed to respond and did just that. Led by Filip “NEO” Kubski, they jumped out to a 4-0 lead on Mirage before North hit back to square the ledger. FaZe rallied again to take the first half 9-6 and then bolted away after switching sides, with Nikola “NiKo” Kova? starring in a 16-8 win for the American outfit.
The decider on Dust2 proved to be a real thriller. FaZe Clan finished the first half 12-3 up and seemed to be cruising, but North won seven consecutive rounds after the interval and eventually tied the game to force overtime. FaZe stood up under pressure, however, stringing together three wins at the death to go up 19-16 and take the series.
That puts FaZe Clan in a shootout with mousesports, with the winner jumping to the semi-finals and the loser heading to the quarters. North will take on MIBR in the lower bracket, while Hellraisers will play Team Liquid.
The tournament kicked off Tuesday in Montpellier, France, featuring 16 teams split into eight pairs for Bo1 matches. Upsets were expected with some of the best teams in the world going against lower-ranked opponents, but few would have tipped such a significant boilover on the opening day.
While North are ranked no.8 in the world and played well in the recent Europe Minor qualifiers, the Danes were long shots to win their first-up clash with the top side. Team Liquid have become a regular fixture in finals matches in 2019 and come into this event fresh off a win at DreamHack Masters Dallas, so they were tagged as clear favourites.
The match took place on Dust2, a map both sides know very well. As expected, Team Liquid started off strong and soon found themselves in a 4-1 lead. However, that soon changed.
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Leading the attack was Philip “aizy” Aistrup, who stepped up for the Danes with a triple to get his team back into the game. That gave North a huge confidence boost. They strengthened their defence and managed to pull up an impressive comeback, getting themselves in a 10-5 lead by the end of the first half.
With the match slipping away, Team Liquid managed to muster up a comeback and closed the gap to a couple of rounds. It looked like extra time was on the way, but that was not to be the case as North held on for a 16-13 win.
The victors now head to the second round for a clash with FaZe Clan, who bested TYLOO with a 16-12 win on Vertigo. Liquid will face TYLOO in the lower bracket.
The MVP of the match was North’s Valdemar “valde” Bj?rn Vangs?, who achieved a 1.43 HLTV rating.
The first day saw a total of 12 games, six of which were played in the upper bracket of Group A. Eight teams started on that side of the draw, but only six made it through to the second round.
The opening two matches of day one saw G2 defeat Grayhound (16-13) and NRG down Fnatic (16-12) in clashes that could have gone either way. The other two matchups were rather one-sided, with Astralis capitalising on an 11-4 half-time lead to hammer Cloud9 (16-9) and Heroic showing no mercy with an 8-1 blitz in the second half against DETONA Gaming (16-8).
The losers of the Bo1 fixtures then entered the first round of the lower bracket, while the winners advanced to the second round of the upper bracket.
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G2 got off to a dominant start against NRG on Train and took a whopping 13-2 lead into the second half. They failed to keep the momentum going and let nine rounds slip after the break, but the half-time buffer was enough for G2 to secure a 16-11 win. The next two maps were much closer, with both ending after extra time, and in the end it was G2 who had to walk away with disappointed faces as NRG completed an epic comeback to advance to the third round.
The Astralis vs Heroic match was much less eventful. The former world no.1 CS:GO esports team showed that class is permanent, claiming 16-7 wins on both Vertigo and Inferno to set up a date with NRG. The winner of that clash will go straight into the semi-finals, with the loser picking up in the quarters.
Meanwhile, G2 and Heroic will continue their campaigns in the lower bracket. G2 are scheduled to take on Cloud9, who swept DETONA in the first round, while Heroic are tasked with a Fnatic side that defeated Grayhound 2-0.
It has not been a good year for the North American team, which has slipped to no.31 in the CS:GO esports world rankings. Since the arrival of Daniel “vice” Kim and René “cajunb” Borg, the squad holds a less-than-impressive 18-27 record on all maps. What makes that record even worse is that it includes defeats against teams like Luminosity and INTZ, who bested them in the ECS weekly cup.
Their current lineup, which consists of cajunb, RUSH, autimatic, vice and Golden, has only played three LAN tournaments, failing to impress in every single one of them. Nevertheless, a win over Ghost Gaming back in May was enough to get Cloud9 into the ESL Pro League S9 Finals.
While such events provide excellent opportunities for teams to prove their worth against the best, the outlook is not promising for Cloud9. They lost to New Identity and The Quest in the Americas Minor Closed Qualifier recently and will head to Montpellier as massive underdogs.
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Still, there are some positives for Cloud9. One of those is Timothy “autimatic” Ta, who has proven he can match it with the best when he is given a chance to do so. Sadly, he is the only one besides cajunb who is averaging at least 1.00 in the HLTV match ratings.
On the other hand, William “RUSH” Wierzba seems a shadow of his former self. As a player who was extremely good in his glory days, RUSH has suffered a rapid decline and now struggles to keep up with the competition and even his own teammates. The same can also be said of Daniel “vice” Kim.
The in-game leader, Maikil “Golden” Selim, gets a pass when we talk about his individual skill, but he too should be a target for some degree of criticism. As an IGL, we would expect him to bring much more out of his teammates. He could work on his leadership skills as well.
While we cannot expect to see a miracle in France, Cloud9 are expected to at least give their fans something to cheer for. Sadly for them, their first matchup is against former no.1 team Astralis – another side that has plenty to prove after some indifferent results.
Adding a new IGL in Finn “karrigan” Andersen alongside ?zgür “woxic” Eker and David “frozen” ?erňansky to their team in March was the start of the rebuilding process of mousesports, who had big plans and even bigger ambitions going forward.
While there were a lot of questions regarding the new additions to the team and their synergy, all the doubts disappeared rather quickly.
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The duo of Robin “ropz” Kool and Chris “chrisJ” de Jong alongside their newly added teammates entered their first tournament at DreamHack Open Tours, which they won in a convincing fashion. While by no means one of the bigger events on the circuit, it still presented some tough opponents.
Mousesports were placed in a Group A with Valiance, Windigo and Instinct Gaming. They ended the group stage with a 2-1 record and progressed to the playoffs where they faced AVANGAR, currently ranked 13th in the world.
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Although AVANGAR dominated in the group stage (2-0), mousesports crushed the Kazakhstan team with big wins on Train (16-8) and Dust II (16-7). A quick win got them a ticket to the finals for a rematch with Valiance, who defeated them 6-16 in the group stage.
Coming in as underdogs, mousesports proved to the world they should not be underestimated with impressive 16-12 and 16-11 wins on Train and Mirage respectively to secure the title.
Despite the impressive show mousesports put up at DreamHack Open Tours, they were average at best at IEM Sydney, where they managed to defeat BOOT-d[S], BIG and Renegades but failed against MIBR.
Nonetheless, there is a lot to look forward to for mousesports fans. Their new addition karrigan is doing what he does best, which is play the IGL role and help stars like ropz and woxic shine. The experienced Dane is known for fixing gameplay issues at any team he joins, as evince by his stints at TSM, Astralis and FaZe Clan.
The next big test for mousesports is the ESL Pro League Season 9 finals series, which will kick off on June 18 in Montpellier, France.
Heroic and Berlin International Gaming (BIG) will face off this week in the group stage of ESL Pro League Season 9 Europe.
BIG have made two roster changes this year. In February, Owen “smooya” Butterfield was let go and was replaced by Johannes “nex” Maget, who returned to the team after his wrist surgery. Sadly, nex’s wrist problems came back in March, so they were forced to replace him with Denis “denis” Howell, who came over from Sprout. It remains to be seen whether denis can deliver the firepower required at this level.
As for the team’s performances, BIG Clan are coming from a disappointing IEM Sydney 2019 tournament, winning only against mousesports 16-14 in a BO1 match and against Korean team MVP PK. They lost 2-0 to the eventual champions, Team Liquid, and were eliminated by mousesports.
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Considering they had to play with a stand-in, the results are not surprising. Their star player Ismailcan “XANTARES” D?rtkarde? was having visa issues, so they had to replace him with their coach, Nikola “LEGIJA” Nini?.
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Heroic’s last big LAN tournament was also IEM Sydney 2019. They played a total of two matches, losing both to Fnatic (16-7 on Train) and Grayhound (2-1 in a BO3 match). As for their performances in the ESL Pro League, they have only managed to win 2-1 against Polish team devils.one, while losing 2-1 to both FaZe Clan and Ninjas in Pyjamas. This will mark the second match between these two teams, as they played against each other at the DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019 Europe Closed Qualifier. BIG managed to come out victorious on that occasion, beating Heroic 2-0 in a BO3 match. The first map resulted in a pretty straightforward win for BIG, 16-10 on Mirage. The second map was Cache, a hard-fought 28-25 win for BIG. The last map had 23 OT rounds played, so it could easily have gone either way. In the end it was BIG who were lucky enough to walk away with a win. BIG are currently priced around $1.60 to win the match, which overrates them a bit. They are a tactically better team than Heroic, but their recent results seem a bit shaky. In addition, we have not yet seen how Denis “denis” Howell fits into this team. As for our prediction, we have to go with Over 2.5 maps. BIG are too inconsistent and Heroic should be able to win at least one map against them. The odds are around $1.90 for all three maps to be played, which is enough for us to recommend a bet. Prediction: Over 2.5 maps – Best odds at GG BetHeroic vs BIG H2H record
Heroic vs BIG betting predictions
Natus Vincere will take on North this Tuesday in Group B of ESL Pro League Season 9 Europe.
NaVi have made no roster changes in 2019 so far, but we are certain this will be “Edward” Sukhariev and Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko’s last year with the team. These two are pretty much the only reason why Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev hasn’t won a Major yet and we are confident saying a good IGL could do wonders for this team in the future.
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NaVi played at the BLAST Pro Series Madrid 2019 about two weeks ago. The results were quite meagre. Getting beaten 16-4 by ENCE in the first match probably didn’t do wonders for their morale. They bounced back to win 16-7 against Cloud9 and came quite close to beating Astralis on Dust II. In the next match they managed to destroy Giants, but in the end, NaVi were eliminated 16-9 by Ninjas in Pyjamas.
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Their ESL Pro League Season 9 Europe campaign started with a 2-1 win over Windigo, followed by a loss to G2 and another win against Fnatic. The loss to G2 was quite an unfortunate one, as s1mple managed a 1.50 HLTV rating across three maps and was clearly the best player on the server that day. Still, that was not enough for NaVi to win.
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North have made two roster changes this year. In February they replaced their coach Alexander “ave” Holdt with Torbj?rn “mithR” Nyborg. About a month ago, they swapped out Casper “cadiaN” M?ller for Jakob “JUGi” Hansen from OpTic Gaming, while Valdemar “valde” Bj?rn took over the role of in-game leader.
The decision to install “valde” as IGL has raised a few eyebrows. We have seen before that tasking your star player with another role is never a good idea. How it works out is something we will have to wait and see, but we have our doubts about it.
NaVi vs North H2H record
This will be the seventh match between these two teams, with North winning eight maps and NaVi only three maps.
The last time they met was at the GG.BET ICE Challenge, where North emerged victorious 2-0 in a BO3 match. Both maps ended quite close with a final score of 16-14 on Dust2 and 16-12 on Nuke. It is worth noting that at the time, North had cadiaN instead of JUGi in their starting lineup.
The only reason why North won that match was due to the impressive performance of valde, who had a 1.37 HLTV rating across both maps. With that in mind, it will all come down to his performance once again.
NaVi vs North betting predictions
We have to side with North here. The match looks like a toss-up and North being priced around $3.50 looks like an amazing opportunity. Sure, NaVi still have two amazing players in their ranks, but their form is not the best, which is why the high odds on North are too good to pass on.
Prediction: North to win – Best odds at GG Bet
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